


Sex War Death Magic

by Teanna



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-01-01
Updated: 2003-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:53:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28119492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teanna/pseuds/Teanna
Summary: Books may well be the only true magic - Alice Hoffman





	Sex War Death Magic

**Author's Note:**

> For the bordello remix challenge - this is a remix of Kyra Cullinan's Narnia story Girls Grow Quicker Than Books
> 
> Thanks to Leea, even if I didn't do what she told me to do.

*  
_Books may well be the only true magic - Alice Hoffman_

*

She wants to be five years old again.

*

Here's what she read before she knew magic: _The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Treasure Island, Peter Pan, I'll Fly Away._

She wanted to be elsewhere, not-here, not her.

Wanted to be grown up and different.

*

And in one of the endings (not the end), she and Ron flanked Harry and Harry asked them for a verdict. And no one said, judge not, that ye be not judged, because she was the only one who knew that book and she wanted to judge.

She did think it odd that a Death Eater like Pettigrew should be wearing faded blue trainers.

Harry pointed his wand but didn't know. So she said to kill him, kill him now, Harry.

No pardons. No pardons.

And then Ron said to let him go.

*

The letter of acceptance to Hogwarts was the end of eleven years of thinking there must be something else. She had not thought it'd be a letter of acceptance - she was thinking of magical mirrors, dream-catchers, or wardrobes maybe.

But there it was. A letter.

Her mother, saying, you always know best, Hermione.

She was eleven.

*

This is what she reads after having known _Hogwarts, A History, New Theory of Numerology, Advanced Rune Translation, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find_

The irony does not pass her by.

*

Her mother had soft hands. She doesn't remember much of her. Oh, Hermione remembers her mother's voice and the smell of peppermint toothpaste and going abroad on a plane or a boat.

She remembers a red dress her mother wore once.

But she never really knew her mother - her parents - and she kept them out of her world as much as possible, as soon as she could.

It turns out, you can keep you parents out of your world but you can't keep your world out of your parents. Your world creeps in and avada kedavras your parents and there is no Time-Turner now, to prevent death.

*

She wants to be five years old again and listen to her father reading her the story of Moses in the desert. She can feel the heat of the sun on her face the salt of her tears on her tongue and know beforehand that Moses will never make it to the promised land.

*

When she reads _The Voyage of the Dawn Treader_ again, she finds that the words are exactly the same.

*

Ron says, of all the people it's Ron, who says, we can, we can forgive.

And she puts her two dead against his one and then there is Harry with all of his dead and this way of thinking leads nowhere but to hell. Says Ron. Only not in those words.

Hermione eats her hatred for dinner, she drinks it in the morning like tea, she sleeps in it at night and she treasures it more than any child she'll ever bear.

*

She used to read books, but she's too old for that now.

*

She found her mother's red dress in a wardrobe. And then, then she wants to be five years old again and know nothing of war and death.

War and death and magic.

War. And death. And magic.

FINIS


End file.
